


Leadership

by Angel_of_indulgence



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Biblical References, Character Study, Gabriel is(n't such a) dick, Gen, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Pre-Fall, She/Her Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), Soft Gabriel (Good Omens), The Fall - Freeform, They/Them Pronouns for Michael (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Uriel (Good Omens), emotional hurt and sort of comfort, not only for Aziraphale though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:55:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28171251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angel_of_indulgence/pseuds/Angel_of_indulgence
Summary: Three Archangels come to Gabriel with a request. Now he has a decision to make about the wayward principality Aziraphale. The other Archangels seems enthusiastic to see their plan through, but Gabriel finds himself, for the first time in a long time, hesitant.The request brings back old memories he finds hard to handle, and he has the leadership of Heaven to think about.
Relationships: Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Leadership

**Author's Note:**

> Applause to my awesome Beta [Pakamausi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pakamausi).

He was on the top of the world, in the most metaphysical sense of the word. Behind him, the long, white empty nothingness of Heaven stretched infinitely, smooth as a mirror. Standing like this, staring out the window, the world spreader gloriously wide beneath his feet, reminded him that he was above everything - the polluted cities with the smoke rises from them, the waves of the ocean, the endless jungles - above every being that was, is or will be part of Creation.

He was higher and mightier than any king that ruled on Earth.

And he stood there alone.

He heard a small, pleasant beeping sound, delicate as the bubbling of a small stream, and felt the thin device, so light he barely felt it, vibrating in the pocket of his suit jacket. He pulled it out with a sleek motion and blew on the screen to activate it.

"Uriel, requesting permission to enter," he heard the Archangel's voice coming through the device.

He pressed the device; the doors to his office opened to both sides to let Uriel in. They were accompanied by Michael and Sandalphon.

The Archangel Gabriel turned to them.

"Are we expecting more trouble with... recent events?" he asked.

His voice was calm and neutral, as though he were talking about some minor mishap that could easily be fixed with the wave of a hand, one little phone call, or a pat on the right shoulder, as he used to do things around here. He hoped that the tension and exhaustion of the last few months did not show on his face. Judging by the looks on Uriel and Sandalphon's faces, he hoped in vain. He really ought to do better. He was their leader; they looked up to him. He did not have the right to falter.

"We found the documents, sir," said Uriel. They held up what looked like a very old, loosely bound book and offered it to Gabriel.

"What documents?" He looked at them in confusion, not moving to take the book from Uriel's hands.

"The entries of the Fallen," said Sandalphon, "we allowed ourselves to take a look inside. The names of all the Fallen are there."

He stressed the word "Fallen" in a way that sent shivers down Gabriel's spine. Sandalphon had special hatred for them, or maybe he simply liked the idea of smiting down those who strayed from the path. It had never really bothered Gabriel before. Not until last August. Not until Tadfield.

"Surely you remember how the names of all who were created as angels were written here." Michael's smile did not reach their eyes. "Those who chose the other way erased their names from this list, or it was removed for them, afterwards."

Uriel's finger roamed the lines written in golden ink in a language that could not be uttered or understood on Earth. Some names were no more than burned holes in the thin, worn parchment.

Gabriel's finger rubbed his lower lip.

"Where did you find it?" He asked at last, after the silence had stretched a bit longer than was polite.

"We dug a little in the most ancient halls of Heaven's library," said Sandalphon, looking pleased with himself.

"That is a dangerous matter that requires special authorization," Gabriel answered, brow furrowed. It wasn't exactly a rebuke, but it came quite close to it.

"We beg you pardon, but we believed that this was a highly significant matter so we took liberty." The words were said with humility, but Sandalphon's gaze was direct and piercing, wordlessly urging Gabriel to do the right thing, make the right decision. Always urging him.

"Shall I summon Raphael?" asked Michael, "so we can activate the circle again together, and start the ceremony?"

"I... don't follow," said Gabriel slowly. He felt cornered in his own office, by his inferiors, no less! Sure, Michael beat down that fatheaded jerk that was "the Morningstar", but he, Gabriel, was now in charge of Heaven in his stead, not Michael. "What circle? Which ceremony? "

For a split second, Gabriel had though that this might be a security issue, to make sure that some of the beings living Below would never be able to find their way up to Heaven except for the ones they agreed to "associate" with, and he was about to assure them that they were perfectly safe and sound when Uriel opened their mouth and spoke.

"The fall of the principality Aziraphale."

Silence followed that statement, in which the word seemed to echo. They did in Gabriel's ears, anyway. The others seemed resolved, determined, ready to enact punishment immediately, certain that his answer would be "yes". Uriel looked almost enthusiastic - they had been one of the most vocal supporters of the Apocalypse, and nowadays they still looked like they were about to smite down the next angel who would call their name or tap their shoulder in the wrong way. If their halo was showing, Gabriel thought, it would have been glowing red-hot like newly forged steel.

Gabriel looked at the three eager faces waiting for his approval. Were they so excited to have everyone working together again, or was it something else entirely? He preferred not to think about this for too long.

"No," he said after some more thought, "I... leave it here. Let me think about this."

The enthusiasm on their faced changed gradually into a surprise and dismay. But he was still Archangel f&%*#$ Gabriel, and they did not dare to protest.

"Very well," said Michael as Uriel placed the ancient text down on the broad desk. "We shall await our summons, then."

The three of them turned to go, but as they reached the doors Sandalphon turned and gave him one of those urging looks. Gabriel met his gaze, but there was a question in his eyes.

"I think," uttered Sandalphon carefully, "that this might spare us quite a lot of trouble in the future. Don't you agree?"

"I will think about it," Gabriel repeated in his 'no room for argument' voice and turned back to look out the windows to Earth, signaling that the conversation was, in fact, over. 

Had he imagined it, or did Uriel and Sandalphon exchange looks before he turned around?

He heard their footsteps as they left one by one.

Gabriel wend back to his desk with a heavy sigh to look more closely at the list of angelic names. It looked like a book that has seen better days: the binding still appeared quite elegant though. Inside, golden letters and burned marks adorned every one of its pages.

Before he knew it, Gabriel's fingers moved through the ancient text, flipping the pages. He could lie to himself all day saying he just opened them randomly, but if he dared to admit the truth, he'd say that his fingers still remembered where _her_ name was written, even as his heart and mind tried desperately to forget.

He couldn't forget, though. Not ever. Deep down, he knew that. He knew that and he dared not think about it. The very thought was sinful.

He dared not think her name, even to himself. It was a dead-name. She chose a different one for herself. But whatever name she was called, her bright blue eyes haunted his memory, smiling at him contentedly from a pale little face framed in long, shining black hair.

He remembered with affection that stabbed him sorrowfully how a lock always fell into her eyes in the most inappropriate moments, disturbing her study; how she used to blow it impatiently out of her face. He remembered that face clearly, the wisdom reflected from them as she frowned to think of something, slender fingers moving fast as lightening on the parchment. He remembered how she looked back then, in her white robes, as she smiled playfully and reached out her hand to him, inviting him to play on Earth with her, to create valleys and hills and forests and streams together. They say that angels can’t dance, but she danced then, on the meadow before him as he played and sang. It wasn't what one might call particularly good dancing, but he never forgot it. He remembered how her face lit up whenever she heard of a new idea.

She had so much fire in her.

And she loved new ideas. She adored them. It was easy for her, almost like an afterthought, to follow the one who spread them in abundance, he who sowed the these new ideas within the hearts of so many angels, twisted them unrecognizably and reaped nothing but pain and terror and flame. 

Gabriel remembered the arguments that they’d had back then, about all those "new ideas" the Morningstar had presented. He remembered her speaking and waving her hand excitedly, pushing her long black hair behind her shoulder, wild and uncontrollable. He remembered how she pleaded with him to just listen to blasphemy, to open his mind, to not be so damn pigheaded and listen to her. Her corporeal form was small, much smaller than his, the top of her head barely reaching his chest - but he knew how fast and deadly she could be, how the passion within her could take down forces that were significantly mightier than her.

He remembered facing her in battle.

He remembered her penetrating blue gaze, like that of a wildcat. That gaze made him freeze, as though she had nailed him to the ground, preventing him from coming any further, getting closer, reaching out to her, trying to stop her.

She was mad. She was raging, and all that rage was directed straight at him, crushing him like an ocean’s wave in a storm, for just a moment before she fell (jumped?) into the abyss below, screaming and burning as she went down, tearing herself away from him forever.

She and so, so many others went with the Lightbringer that day.

He and Michael remained the last ones standing on the battlefield, silent, holding onto each other's hands, frozen like pillars of salt, looking back to where they lost their brothers and sisters to the consuming darkness. He did not know how long they stood there, but at some point he noticed that Michael was held tightly in his arms. She was trembling, their tears on his shoulders, and to his horror and dismay his cheeks were wet, too.

But that was then. This is now.

He swore an oath never to feel like that again. Never to let tears stream out of his eyes like that. He wrapped everything he felt for her in new armor made of stone and iron, like the churches the humans had built in his name throughout the years. He covered the softer parts of himself that still throbbed painfully like a never-fading bruise. Soft places like that were too vulnerable, too weak. Cracks in the armor may allow evil to penetrate like a needle, to poison and twist and lie, change and distort.

He made sure no one would ever penetrate his armor again. At least, he tried.

But someone had. Someone had penetrated his defenses with short golden locks, with hesitance in his movements and an innocent, open smile. _Sunshine._ Somehow, Gabriel had let Aziraphale through, and after everything that happened, Gabriel found it hard to forgive. So hard, in fact, that he offered Hellfire Instead.

Looking at her name, his finger gently caressed the burned place where it had once been.

"Her name," he said aloud, because he seemed to need the reminder, "is Beelzebub."

Even if she still banished the flies from her face with the same aggravated movement, breathing out impatiently like she used to do with her long, flowing hair.

Even if everything he wanted was to knock down that stupid fly hat from her head to see those glorious locks once more.

Even if she looked at him again and those blue eyes were just as fierce as he remembered.

Even if she made him feel, if only for one moment, that he was not the only one that carried the weight of the world, and after all these years they conversed naturally and slid with ease into teamwork together, as though she had never left him, as though he had never seen her plunge down like a meteor with burning wings. As though he hadn’t spent the last six thousand years imagining holding her again and whispering her name.

"That's her name now. Beelzebub."

He looked at the book again, turned a few pages, hiding the burned mark that was once her name.

He started looking for another name, one that was still carved in golden letter, although Gabriel banned it and would not allow anyone to mention it in Heaven ever again for the next thousand years. The name that Uriel and Michael and Sandalphon were so willing to burn right off the page.

Aziraphale.

Gabriel could reach out for the power of Uriel and Michael and Sandalphon and Raphael, to seek of God the power to burn Aziraphale's wings, to make him plunge into the pool of sulfur that awaited the damned. He could condemn him to thousands of years of agony and then a stretching eternity of nothingness, a dessert without end, without a horizon, without divine grace.

He could do this.

Aziraphale deserved it.

A good leader does what is best for his people. A good leader does not have chinks and fractures in his armor.

He had tried to burn Aziraphale once. He had failed. He was wrong. He was the leader of Heaven, the only thing that links between the angels and their Lady, their Queen, their silent Mother. It was his role to protect them, guide them, manage them in her absence. He was supposed to be the only one who understood what she wanted of them.

But he’d failed at that, too.

Gabriel slammed the book shut and stormed out of his office.

***

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Gabriel's entire consciousness concentrated on the sound of his sneakers against the wet pavement, on his rhythmic breath and the beating of his heart, on his straining muscles and his burning lungs.

Very few humans roamed St. James' park at this hour. Dark grey clouds, heavy with rain, hung above the park, covering it in a bleakness that was more felt than seen.

He did it more and more often nowadays. His corporation was borrowed. Earth was just the chess-board on which Heaven and Hell moved humans in the cosmic game they played.

Yet he found himself here every time the crack in his armor started to hurt, when he felt that the endless expanse of his office in Heaven made him feel as though the flame of Heavenly Grace within him fluttered and faded, when the view of the whole world beneath him made him feel like he was buried deep under it.

Down here, under a blanket of stormy grey sky and silent trees, none of which looked exactly like the other, he was able to let go of his thoughts enough to sort them out, to separate the waters from the waters, as they say, and to light the formless void of his mind.

Here, he wasn't an Archangel, the strongest being in the world beside the Almighty. Here, he was just some guy named Gabriel, another face that passed by, a crazy sports enthusiast who goes out for a run in any weather.

When he’d gone for a run here in August, his head had been full of plans and maps, of actions and reactions and formations and weapons drills. But now, there was nothing but endless waiting, no goal to aspire to, no Small or Great Plan of any sort, just an Ineffable Plan that he cannot understand but must peruse, and that made him feel as vulnerable as a human.

He needed to know. He had to know. How can he lead in Heaven if he does not know what for?

In the end, they were supposed to win. They were supposed to win and then God would speak to them again.

He had looked forward to it. All he had now was an eternity without Her voice.

He stopped, breathing hard, leaned forward and braced his hands on his aching thighs.

The first-ranked angel evened his breathe and found himself leaning on the fence surrounding the duck pond. No ducks could be seen in the pond. They were all hidden in the bushes around, hiding from the cold and sheltering each other with their wings.

Though the park was empty and grey, Gabriel, being an angel, could not help but feel the deep echoes of human activity: the excitement of children running and playing; the tension of the foreign agents feeding the ducks; the laughter of teenage girls; the tapping of many sneakers, much like his own; the click of high heels and urgent phone conversations; hands throwing balls of all colors and sizes.

For the first time since the awkward mishap in Babylon and that stupid tower, Gabriel allowed himself to actually listen to those echoes. He found himself giving in to them, breathing them in deeply, allowing himself to be filled with their maddening, mortal cacophony, letting their raw emotions wash over him, wave after wave of that deep grace and that pure evil that they were capable of.

There, in front of the duck pond in St. James' Park, he allowed himself to remember after all this time that they all had a divine spark within them; that was bigger than the entire universe.

Drops of sweat and rain mixed on his face and flowed freely on his cheeks, and he did not bother to wipe them away.

The Almighty loved them. Aziraphale understood them. And now, after running for hours in the park, with aching ribs and aching legs, muscles strained almost to the verge of their ability, he thought he might someday understand that too.

But there were no people in the park to speak of now. Only water from above and from below, like that world was restarting yet again.

But the rain will end, eventually. Gabriel knew that. The people will return to fill their park with their loud, bursting humanity. 

He guessed that in a few hours, perhaps, his former employee will venture out of the bookshop and into the cold morning to buy baked goods from the bakery across the street. It was probably the most blessed place in the whole of England, perhaps the world (Gabriel had had a few firm conversations about it with Accounting to register these miracles under "deductibles"), and perhaps he would come later to St. James' park to feed the ducks, who would have started to wake up by now. Gabriel did not want to be here when that happened.

He turned to leave, running at a slower pace now.

He was the leader of Heaven. His job was to solve problems, not create them.

The book on his desk would be returned to the library and locked away for good.

He would await his orders. He would keep things running and wait to hear Her voice again, even if he had to wait another thousand years.

When thunder rolled above London, Gabriel was gone. The park was as empty as the Garden of Eden after the Adam and Eve were banished.

In the distance, though, was a small ray of light, and the very few people who looked up at this hour could see the small, hopeful rainbow, if only for a moment.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading! I might have borrowed the idea for the burnt names fro the The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, I though it could go well with Good Omens. :) 
> 
> Hope you liked it! Leave a comment if you feel like it, I always love those ^_^
> 
> Ineffable Bureaucracy FTW! XD


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